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It’s a “private issue,” right?

Jill

Just when I was in love with opinion columnists, this had to go and happen:

Chicago Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member Neil Steinberg was arrested at his home late Wednesday and charged with striking his wife during an argument.

(…)

“We hope for the best for Neil and his family,” said Sun-Times Editor John Barron.

So is he fired? Suspended? As far as I can tell, no.

I’m not necessarily a proponent of people losing their jobs (or being unable to get a job) because of past crimes (especially misdemeanors) that they committed. However, the standard changes when the person in question is a public figure, as Steinberg is. Should he have his entire life destroyed over this? No. But he should be hit a little harder than “We hope for the best.” I wonder if the reaction would have been the same had he been arrested for child abuse. Even if he does get fired, he can always get a job at an amusement park.

Thanks to Julia for the link.

148 thoughts on It’s a “private issue,” right?

  1. When I was an undergrad, a professor in my department hit his wife on the head with a rock, and was charged with attempted murder. (The charge was later downgraded.) The head of my department served as a character witness. The soundbyte quoted in the local paper? That, according to the department head, the accused was a “very talented researcher”.

    I had originally hoped that the judge would take that as an example of damning with faint prase, but given that this prof was ultimately sentenced to two years less a day – of house arrest (for domestic violence, chew on that one, eh?) – it seems that the judge actually thought that “very talented researcher” was a mitigating factor.

    In retrospect, maybe “I hope for the best” isn’t so bad.

  2. You feminists disgust me. He hasn’t been convicted of anything, yet you are already calling for him to be suspended or fired. Why is it that you criticize Bush for failing to give terrorists due process of law, but want to deny any man accused of domestic violence the same?

  3. You anti-feminist wingnuts amuse me.

    Due process of law != private employer’s personnel policy.

    That said, a not inconsiderable number of innocent people have been accused of assault.

  4. Andrew is wrong, but he’s not totally wrong. I think suspension is warranted pending investigation. Summary firing for an accusation is not appropriate.

  5. If you actually read the article, Steinberg pretty much admitted to the crime. He said that he is “deeply humiliated to have brought this misfortune” on his family, and denies none of the charges. Given that, I don’t see why he has to be convicted of something to be suspended. ANYTHING would have been better than what the Sun-Times did. They could have just made some statement to the effect that the newspaper does not condone violence against women and would look into the matter — pretty wimpy but still better than acting like this is just a family matter. What a message to send to their female readers. I guess it’s not surprising from my hometown paper, the paper that published Richard Roeper’s piece on how he can’t stand looking at those fat disgusting Dove models.

  6. You feminists disgust me. He hasn’t been convicted of anything, yet you are already calling for him to be suspended or fired

    You people who lack basic reading comprehension skills disgust me. I didn’t say he should be fired or suspended (although if you’re curious, I do think he should be at least suspended if he’s guilty). I simply said he has not been fired nor suspended. As for how he should be punished, all I said was, “he should be hit a little harder than “We hope for the best.””

  7. Sort of unrelated, but Robert Novak got kicked off the air for saying “shit” which is a lot more minor than spousal abuse.

  8. You anti-feminist wingnuts amuse me.

    So anyone who opposes gender feminism is a wingnut? Interesting, since I’m probably more liberal than most Democrats and feminists. Unlike that wonderful feminist, Hillary Clinton, I opposed the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, the war it green-lighted, and the subsequent occupation. Unlike the feminist John Kerry, I support same-sex marriage. Just because I don’t support gender feminism doesn’t mean I’m a wingnut.

    Due process of law != private employer’s personnel policy.

    I find it interesting that gender feminists support Marxist ideas like comparable worth, but think that employers should be able to fire employees for simply being accused of a crime.

    You people who lack basic reading comprehension skills disgust me. I didn’t say he should be fired or suspended (although if you’re curious, I do think he should be at least suspended if he’s guilty). I simply said he has not been fired nor suspended. As for how he should be punished, all I said was, “he should be hit a little harder than “We hope for the best.””

    It’s kind of hypocritical for you to be criticizing my reading comprehension skills since you and other gender feminists obviously can’t read the US Constitution or you would know that the 14th Ammendment doesn’t contain a “right to privacy.”

  9. It’s kind of hypocritical for you to be criticizing my reading comprehension skills since you and other gender feminists obviously can’t read the US Constitution or you would know that the 14th Ammendment doesn’t contain a “right to privacy.”

    Many, many rights that Americans hold are not explicitly written out in the Constitution. The First Amendment doesn’t contain a right to “expression,” but the Supreme Court has nonetheless found that we do have a right to expressive speech (i.e., flagburning). They interpret the black-letter law. From those interpretations come other rights and liberties that aren’t explicitly spelled out. But I suppose they lack reading comprehension skills, too.

  10. Obviously many rights are not explicitly written out in the Constitution, but most of them have some basis in the Consitution. But the right to privacy was pulled out of Harry Blackmun’s ass. Roe v Wade was nothing more than judges abusing their power and writing law instead of interpreting it.

  11. Interesting that you should bring Roe up as somehow creating the right to privacy. In fact, it was established a while before that. Roe followed precedent. Good try, though.

  12. You’re right, I forgot about the 2 cases in the 1960s involving birth control. So Blackmun didn’t pull the right to privacy out of his ass, but he did legislate. Look at Roe v Wade: Blackmun said that abortion can’t be regulated in the 1st trimester, it can be regulated in the 2nd trimester, and can be banned in the 3rd trimester (as it is in my home state). He didn’t interpret the law, he fucking wrote it.

  13. That standard doesn’t really apply anymore; it was shifted by the right-leaning court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Judges also set standards like that pretty often — Roe certainly isn’t an exception. I’m exhausted and I’m going to bed now, but I’ll get more into this tomorrow.

  14. Jill:

    You people who lack basic reading comprehension skills disgust me. I didn’t say he should be fired or suspended (although if you’re curious, I do think he should be at least suspended if he’s guilty)

    Please. Your statement: “So is he fired? Suspended? As far as I can tell, no” immediately after the statement saying this man was arrested only last night, clearly indicates disapproval that he has not yet been fired or suspended. Because he’s male, there’s no need to wait for anything like a trial, conviction, admission of guilt, etc.. right?

    And as you should well know, it’s perfectly possible for innocent men to get arrested for a domestic. For instance, Madison, WI has a mandatory arrest policy if the police are called out to a home for DA. Someone gets to cool their heels in jail that night. All things considered, it’s a good idea to have a mandatory timeout — but it certainly leads to innocent people being arrested.

  15. It’s kind of hypocritical for you to be criticizing my reading comprehension skills since you and other gender feminists obviously can’t read the US Constitution or you would know that the 14th Ammendment doesn’t contain a “right to privacy.”

    Naah, it’s in the Ninth Amendment. A vigorous application of the Ninth makes things very difficult for prohibition-happy governments, so judges and justices will resort to all sorts of tortured constructions to avoid citing it.

  16. So anyone who opposes gender feminism is a wingnut

    Yes. So is anyone who opposes civil rights for people of all ethnicities and sexual orientations. I know a lot of “liberal” men find the idea that women are adult human beings equal to them to be a difficult concept, but they need to get over it if they don’t want to be wingnuts.

    That having been said, everyone is entitled to a trial and conviction before being punished for their crimes, even if they do make a confession beforehand. Even an idiot wingnut like Steinberg who whines about “victim culture”. Anyone want to bet that he decides he’s just a victim of society now?

  18. Have you ever noticed that no one who uses the term “gender feminism” ever has anything even slightly interesting to say? Ditto for people who assume that Hillary Clinton is the High Priestess of feminism.

    If he’s convicted, I would say let him keep his column but kick him off the editorial board. People will know his history and can take it into account when judging the columns to which he signs his name. But he shouldn’t be meeting with a bunch of other people to decide which opinions get the official impramatur of the newspaper. There’s no way for people to screen out his bias. It would also send a message that what he did was a serious offense.

  19. This is impressive. I didn’t know people actually said “gender feminism” outside of Martin Amis novels.

    A great constitutional expert like yourself forgot about the birth control cases?

    Dude, you really should have googled the subject before you started flinging turds.

  20. Okay, I’m probably revealing my own ignorance in several ways here, and if Andrew has a history around this site then that’s the first thing I wouldn’t know about, but… what the hell? After reading this thread, Andrew, how could anyone think you are not a troll?

    I know what a feminist is, but what’s a “gender feminist”? A Google search only turned up people attacking it, no one who actually believes in it. Is it just a boogeyman invented so reactionaries have something to attack without being openly sexist?

    And how do you jump from the public image of wife-beating to abortion? I mean, unless you’re seriously stating that everyone who opposes abortion also supports wife-beating, that seemed crazy to me.

    And how could anyone not tell the difference between “due process of law” and what private employers do for ethical and/or public relations reasons? And what does believing in comparable worth (which as far as I know hasn’t been an issue for years, but whatever) have to do with whether the paper should fire him? Whether they should have the right to fire him or not is irrelevant – they do have that right, so what does it say if they do or don’t choose to exercise it?

    And I’ve never met a self-described liberal who didn’t believe to at least some extent in a right to privacy, as seen in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

  21. Here’s a post from Steinberg’s Tribune nemesis Eric Zorn patting himself on the back about how he refuses to “snipe” at Steinberg. “[I]n print he has been frank, if not totally forthcoming, about his flaws and failings…I look forward very much to the day when he’s no longer down and I can begin kicking him around again. ” Always good to see male columnists put aside their differences and stick up for each other when the chips are down.

  22. Hey Moebius Stripper,

    Quick question, were you in the Math Department at Waterloo when this incident happened? I seem to remember something similiar to what you mention when I was in school.

    Anyway sorry for getting away from topic.

    Regards,
    SV

  23. since I’m probably more liberal than most Democrats and feminists

    If you’re anti-feminist and anti-privacy, you’re not all that liberal.

  24. A few years ago Neil made some disgusting remarks about a women suing Kennedy-Smith for rape. I was in a meeting with him about it and he kept defending himself as a nice guy. A married nice guy. Married to a nice woman.

    So when a man with the huge soapbox uses his nice marriage as defense of his disgusting rantings, I think it’s ok to expect that he be put on leave while he is in treatment for his drinking (as stated in the Sun-Times piece) as well as any anger management he may be seeking.

    Yes, let’s let the courts sort out the criminal punishment, but we can’t overlook that Neil Steinberg makes a living off of telling us all his opinion on the world and the news. And because of that, he should be held to a higher standard. I’m not even saying that they should stop paying him, but give the man a ‘vacation’ to get his act together. Then he can go on Oprah or give his mea culpa to Eric Zorn. Just act like domestic violence is something other than a cold.

  25. Andrew, the right of privacy has been held to emanate from the Fourth and Ninth Amendments, not the Fourteenth. If you’re going to argue about the right of privacy, “forgetting” that right was well-established by the time Roe came along (plus mixing up your Bill of Rights) doesn’t make you look like you know what you’re talking about.

    I didn’t say he should be fired or suspended

    Jill, c’mon. That was rather strongly implied. “I’m not necessarily a proponent of people losing their jobs (or being unable to get a job) because of past crimes (especially misdemeanors) that they committed. However, the standard changes when the person in question is a public figure, as Steinberg is” does tend to suggest that you think that, yes, the guy should have been fired or at the very leasts suspended.

    The yes-but here is that Steinberg appears to have admitted guilt; it’s not clear from the article whether he is pleading guilty or what, but at least the included quote sure makes it sound as though he is admitting to what he did. That’s a little different than “he was charged with a crime, fire his ass.”

    I’d suspect the university hasn’t quite decided what to do yet, especially if he has not formerly pleaded guilty.

  26. what’s a “gender feminist”?

    A good question, but personally, I’m more curious about a slightly different question: What’s a non-gender feminist?

  27. Jill, c’mon. That was rather strongly implied. “I’m not necessarily a proponent of people losing their jobs (or being unable to get a job) because of past crimes (especially misdemeanors) that they committed. However, the standard changes when the person in question is a public figure, as Steinberg is” does tend to suggest that you think that, yes, the guy should have been fired or at the very leasts suspended.

    Ok, I see what you’re saying, and I can see how it would be interpreted as my lobbying for his firing. But I followed that with, “Should he have his entire life destroyed over this? No. But he should be hit a little harder than “We hope for the best.””

    What I was trying to say was that there should be some sort of penalty for public figures who admit to and are under investigation for committing violent crimes. It seems pretty clear from the article that Steinberg wasn’t denying that he abused his wife, and that he was seeking alcohol counselling to apparently deal with it. I would say that merits at least a suspension from his public job; if not that, then a harsher condemnation than “We wish him the best.” That’s one of the reasons why I brought up the child abuse comparison — you can bet that if this guy had pretty much admitted to beating or molesting a child, the editor of the paper wouldn’t be “wishing him the best.”

  28. Dianne, it’s an “equity feminist,” which is an anti-feminist writer who says she would be a feminist except that those bitches are so unfairly mean to men and insensitive to their oppression.

  29. I think the law should punnish the crime, not corporate interests. I know domestic abuse is a tough issue, and I don’t think the law should give the guy an inch.

    My company has a policy of firing workers who have been convicted of Drunk Driving. I agree with the policy, and if they have the same for domestic abuse (I don’t know for certain) I would support it as well.

    I think a conviction is important, though.

  30. Just because I don’t support gender feminism doesn’t mean I’m a wingnut.

    No. But jumping in with a deliberate, strawman misreading of Jill’s post gets you halfway there, and citing Hillary as your first example of a feminist gets you the rest of the way home.

  31. An employee at Steinberg’s level undoubtedly has an employment contract that the paper will have to take into account when deciding what to do about this. For all we know, the contract has a moral turpitude clause that would govern this situation.

    The paper is undoubtedly moving slowly and offering tepid public statements because the contract needs to be reviewed and interpreted before they can make a move.

  32. The column Roni mentioned came out about a year ago. The Sun-Times’ links no longer work, but here are two posts I wrote about his handling of Kennedy-Smith being charged of rape. He’s not a nice guy. His column should at least be suspended until after he’s gone through alcohol treatment and anger management.

  33. I personally think there should be a very high standard that has to be reached before companies can discipline workers for things that happen in their private lives. I think it’s vitally important this boundary is maintained (and expanded). I don’t think that he’s a “public figure” changes things in the slightest, it’s just a get out clause. He’s only been charged (and even if he did it, it doesn’t mean he’s a criminal, there are plenty of instances where hitting people is legal).

  34. Yes. So is anyone who opposes civil rights for people of all ethnicities and sexual orientations. I know a lot of “liberal” men find the idea that women are adult human beings equal to them to be a difficult concept, but they need to get over it if they don’t want to be wingnuts.

    Feminism is not about equal rights, it’s about Marxism and special privilleges.

    A great constitutional expert like yourself forgot about the birth control cases?

    Did I ever claim to be a constitutional expert? No. So fuck off. And I doubt anyone else who left a comment here is one either. Half of them are probably Women’s Studies majors at Berkley.

    And how do you jump from the public image of wife-beating to abortion? I mean, unless you’re seriously stating that everyone who opposes abortion also supports wife-beating, that seemed crazy to me.

    Well, Jill criticized my reading comprehension skills, so I responded that hers aren’t very good since she can’t read nor comprehend the US Constitution.

    And how could anyone not tell the difference between “due process of law” and what private employers do for ethical and/or public relations reasons?

    Actually I wrote about due process because I was pissed off that it’s obvious she believes that any man accused of domestic violence is guilty. And keep in mind that the newspaper probably can’t fire him for being accused of a crime – not all employments can be terminated at will.

    And I’ve never met a self-described liberal who didn’t believe to at least some extent in a right to privacy, as seen in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

    Well my main problem with the right to privacy is that most liberals support it selectively. They claim the right to privacy allows for abortion on demand. Yet liberals support the enforcement of laws that ban people from using certain substances that the government deems illegal. If that’s not a violation of the right to privacy then what is?

    If you’re anti-feminist and anti-privacy, you’re not all that liberal.

    I’m not anti-privacy, I just don’t see how the Constitution contains a right to privacy and a right to abortion. And how does being anti-feminist disqualify me from being liberal?

    No. But jumping in with a deliberate, strawman misreading of Jill’s post gets you halfway there, and citing Hillary as your first example of a feminist gets you the rest of the way home.

    I cited Hillary as a feminist because, obviously, she is one.

  36. Feminism is not about equal rights, it’s about Marxism and special privilleges.

    You basically marched in here and screamed “I don’t know the first thing about feminism” in your first post, so I wouldn’t go pontificating about what you think feminism is. If you’d like to learn a little bit about feminism, I’m sure that people here could give you a reading list. Right now, you’re revealing your ignorance and making a fool of yourself.

  37. No. But jumping in with a deliberate, strawman misreading of Jill’s post gets you halfway there, and citing Hillary as your first example of a feminist gets you the rest of the way home.

    applause(!) I only wish I had been able to mock “gender feminism” first. Damned job.

  40. Well my main problem with the right to privacy is that most liberals support it selectively. They claim the right to privacy allows for abortion on demand. Yet liberals support the enforcement of laws that ban people from using certain substances that the government deems illegal. If that’s not a violation of the right to privacy then what is?

    yeah, us hippie socialists sure do like making drugs illegal. like how the Controlled Substances Act, which introduced scheduling and such was pushed for aggressively and signed into law by that crazy liberal, Richard Nixon.

    you know, Andrew, most guys, when they’re doing that whole “if I say I’m liberal, I’ll get all the pussy” line at least think to mask some of that hatred of liberal principles and outright misogyny and before you go doding:

    Did I ever claim to be a constitutional expert? No. So fuck off. And I doubt anyone else who left a comment here is one either. Half of them are probably Women’s Studies majors at Berkley. (sic)

    is a microcosm of hatred of liberal principles and misogyny.

  44. Re: feminism

    Is it just a boogeyman invented so reactionaries have something to attack without being openly sexist?

    Pretty much.

  45. Wait, John Kerry is a feminist?

    yes. because… umm… he had beautifully manicured nails. seriously, I shook his hand at a campaign stop. pretty=feminine, and that’s like, two letters off. That’s as accurate as Nostradamus’s prediction as Hitler.

  46. I personally think there should be a very high standard that has to be reached before companies can discipline workers for things that happen in their private lives. I think it’s vitally important this boundary is maintained (and expanded). I don’t think that he’s a “public figure” changes things in the slightest, it’s just a get out clause. He’s only been charged (and even if he did it, it doesn’t mean he’s a criminal, there are plenty of instances where hitting people is legal)

    .

    My point, Nik, is that it’s offensive that spousal abuse is considered stricly part of someone’s “private life” instead of the crime it is. Yes, there is a chance that this guy didn’t do anything wrong, but that seems odd in light of the fact that he already apologized for it.

    Are there instances where hitting someone is legal? Perhaps if it’s self-defense, but again, that didn’t seem to be the case here. Obviously we don’t know all the facts, but you just proved my greater point — that it’s too common for people to look at spousal abuse and label it “private.” Child molestation is equally as “private,” but I don’t think many people would argue for sweeping that under the rug.

  47. My point, Nik, is that it’s offensive that spousal abuse is considered stricly part of someone’s “private life” instead of the crime it is.

    Should he be fired for beating his wife? No. Should he be fired for bringing disrepute to the paper? Yes. From the employer’s perspective, spousal abuse is strictly part of someone’s “private life” and the employer has no inherent responsibility to mete out punishment for what employees do “off the clock”. Spousal abuse at home is no more grounds for justified termination than oral sodomy or conception at home. We tried that disciplinary model out about a century ago, and it never worked well.

  48. You basically marched in here and screamed “I don’t know the first thing about feminism” in your first post, so I wouldn’t go pontificating about what you think feminism is. If you’d like to learn a little bit about feminism, I’m sure that people here could give you a reading list. Right now, you’re revealing your ignorance and making a fool of yourself.

    No, I know exactly what feminism is. I don’t need a “reading list” to learn more about it. I have better things to do than read Andrea Dworkin’s screed or Valerie Solanas’s revision of Mein Kampf.

    Feminism is not about equality, as I wrote earlier it’s about Marxism and special privleges. Feminists enthusiastically support government-sponsored reverse discrimination, euphemistically called affirmative action, yet seek to force private males-only organizations to admit women. Feminists want more educational programs for women, despite the fact that women make up a majority of university students. Feminists want a Violence Against Women Act even though, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, men make up a majority of violent crime victims.

    Feminists rightly criticize Islamic countries for discriminaton against women, but remain silent on the issue of the males-only military conscription that exists in around 70 countries, including Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and other supposedly egalitarian countries. Only a handful of countries conscript both men and women – Israel, Eritrea, Burma, Libya, Angola, North Korea, and Vietnam. If the genders were reversed, there would be an international campaign against conscription, economic sanctions against countries practicing conscription, and treaties banning it.

    I know that some idiot feminist is going to respond to this by saying that I’m claiming only males are oppressed and compare me to a Holocaust denier. I’m not denying that discrimination against women exists. I recognize that discrimination exists against both men and women, but feminists deny this and think that there is no anti-male discrimination.

    As for feminism and Marxism, most early radical feminists were socialists or communists. Gloria Steinem is a member of Democratic Socialists for America, which has the same objectives as Marxist groups. Feminists don’t want a democratic government, they want policies decided by judges and anti-discrimination commissions. They want to destroy any disctinction between public and private property. Look at their attempts to force private organizations like Augusta National Golf Club and the Boy Scouts to admit women, including attempts at legal action against them. They want the government to force employers to pay male and female employees in different jobs of “comparable worth” the same pay, completely ignoring market forces. Comparable worth is an anti-capitalist Marxist policy which, like the rest of Marxism, has been proven to be a failure yet is still supported by feminists.

    yeah, us hippie socialists sure do like making drugs illegal. like how the Controlled Substances Act, which introduced scheduling and such was pushed for aggressively and signed into law by that crazy liberal, Richard Nixon.

    Drug laws are supported by most Democratic politicians, including Bill Clinton, who attempted to prove that he was tough on crime and spent billions on enforcement of drug laws new prisons, harsher sentances, and expanded the death penalty. But I guess none of that matters since he supported abortion.

    you know, Andrew, most guys, when they’re doing that whole “if I say I’m liberal, I’ll get all the pussy” line at least think to mask some of that hatred of liberal principles and outright misogyny and before you go doding:
    — ——–
    Did I ever claim to be a constitutional expert? No. So fuck off. And I doubt anyone else who left a comment here is one either. Half of them are probably Women’s Studies majors at Berkley. (sic)
    ———-
    is a microcosm of hatred of liberal principles and misogyny.

    The only liberal principles I hate are liberals’ love of political correctness and subservience to feminism. I’m not “doing that whole “if I say I’m liberal, I’ll get all the pussy” line. I actually consider myself liberal on a lot of issues.

    How the hell is criticizing university womens’ studies programs misogynist? You know, there should be a Godwin’s Law for debating with feminists. Instead of the first person to compare someone or something to the Nazis loosing the argument, the first person to use the word “misogyny” should loose.

    Wait, John Kerry is a feminist?

    Did you ever read his platform?

  49. Ah, right on schedule, he spits out thenames of Andrea Dworkin and Valerie Solanas. Doesn’t that count as a Godwin?

  50. (sigh)

    We should call it the Goolies’ Law. Whaddaya wanna bet he starts in with the LAW links sometime soon?

  51. Or the fish-bicycle quote. Shorter Andrew: I couldn’t fool you with the faux Constitutional stuff, so I’ll just go full-bore with a tantrum.

    From the employer’s perspective, spousal abuse is strictly part of someone’s “private life” and the employer has no inherent responsibility to mete out punishment for what employees do “off the clock”.

    From the employer’s perspective, employees not protected by a contract or CBA are at-will and can be fired for combing their hair funny.

  52. That’s what I was going to bring up–the Fourth Amendment. Why is it that every wingnut moron claiming no right to privacy exists in the Consitution ignores THAT Amendment? Oh wait, never mind–they’re generally the ones who WANT unwarranted search and seizure. Although the more conservative Democrats aren’t far behind them. (And want to severely restrict or ban abortion, too. But hey… they’re two different parties… right?)

    Hey, if women can be fired for not wearing lots of makeup and fancy feminine clothes to work, why in the world can’t this guy be fired for (1) being accused of domestic assault and (2) admitting to domestic assault when (3) he even left a mark on his wife’s face? Why is it it’s perfectly OK for businesses to have standards to which they expect their employees to adhere on pain of firing when it’s something frivolous but not when the employee in question is acting like a little sociopath?

  53. Spousal abuse at home is no more grounds for justified termination than oral sodomy or conception at home.

    Wow. I may be missing a step. What if the guy is convicted of counterfeiting money at home? Or cooking crystal meth? Or plotting to overthrow the government at home?

    These are all part of his private life, too, at least until he actually takes steps to overthrow the government. Are they also not grounds for justified termination? Comparing spousal abuse, also known as (at bare minimum) assault and battery to a consensual sexual act – or “contraception”, I assume you mean – is a little unhinged, to say the least.

  56. Feminists rightly criticize Islamic countries for discriminaton against women, but remain silent on the issue of the males-only military conscription

    Ok, congratulations, you’ve made your first valid point, however trivial it may be. One miniscule criticism isn’t enough to even begin to justify your rapid bigotry though… what’s the real issue? Hate your mom? Dumped by a woman?

  57. Actually, many feminists have criticized male-only military conscription, on the grounds that women will never fully enjoy the rights of citizenship unless they’re expected to bear the obligations equally. See, for instance, Linda Kerber’s No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies. It’s further evidence that Andrew isn’t quite the expert on feminism that he thinks he is.

  58. Feminists rightly criticize Islamic countries for discriminaton against women, but remain silent on the issue of the males-only military conscription

    FWIW, I’ve always thought that if there is a draft at all it should be gender neutral. Of course, if there were a draft, I’d either leave or, if the option were allowed as it is in Germany, do peaceful alternative service.

    Going back to the subject of Steinberg, how about firing him for lousy writing and worse logic, thereby avoiding the whole problem? Alternately, if he is convicted, perhaps he can be fired for absenteeism while he serves his sentence?

  59. remain silent on the issue of the males-only military conscription

    That’s not entirely true. Because most feminists are anti-war, I haven’t seen a call for female soldiers (though plenty have written on the experiences of women in the military). On the other hand, I have seen plenty of criticism about why it is that men and only men are considered worthy of being cannon fodder, and it ain’t pretty.

    As far as I can tell, most feminists see war as pissing matches on a grand and destructive scale, and one that we’re not eager to have anyone participate in. Why we wouldn’t call for equal conscription comes from there. All volunteer army or no army.

  60. You know, there should be a Godwin’s Law for debating with feminists

    Godwin’s Law isn’t “the person who invokes nazis loses” dink.
    the exact wording: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”
    in other words, it’s inevitable. and guess what, when you start talking to feminists about how stupid and wrong they are and how none of their politics are right or worthwhile, you’re likely to be accused of misogyny. the same way the sky is likely to be accused of being blue. here’s another enevitability. when bringing up stupid shit on the internet, someone’s gonna call you a fucking moron.
    you.
    fucking.
    moron.
    You’re a liberal like Robespierre. Your kind, we can do without.

    Ok, congratulations, you’ve made your first valid point

    valid in the classical logic sense of “if true, follows logically”, right? I’ve never seen a single feminist who says a male only draft is a good idea. And I’m quite sure feminists in general will make more of a point to bring it up when the draft is actually instituted, since otherwise it’s kind of a moot point.

  62. Re: conscription, I think it’s mostly nonfeminist conservative Republicans who have tried to limit women’s roles in the military. Being anti-war isn’t a litmus test for being liberal. IIRC, Pat Buchanan was opposed to the Iraq War.

  63. One of the most powerful arguments against the ERA was that it would require the military to draft women. That’s actually where Kerber’s title comes from: Phyllis Schlaffly argued that American women had “a constitutional right to be ladies” and therefore not to participate in that sordid business. Anti-feminists, not feminists, were the people howling about women’s right to be protected from the draft.

    Part of me thinks that if we’re going to have a military, we should have a universal draft, rather than the economic draft that we have now. I haven’t quite figured out my conflicting feelings about it, but I certainly think that any draft should affect women and men equally.

  64. From the employer’s perspective, employees not protected by a contract or CBA are at-will and can be fired for combing their hair funny.

    The principle of at-will employment does neatly sidestep the whole question of justified firing.

    Wow. I may be missing a step. What if the guy is convicted of counterfeiting money at home? Or cooking crystal meth? Or plotting to overthrow the government at home?

    After a due conviction, he’d be serving no small amount of jail time which chronic absence would justiify termination.

    Comparing spousal abuse, also known as (at bare minimum) assault and battery to a consensual sexual act – or “contraception”, I assume you mean – is a little unhinged, to say the least.

    The first is an illegal act which Jill finds abhorrent, and the second (conception=becoming pregnant) is an act which other people find abhorrent in some circumstances and would like to make illegal. In advocating for employers to fire people as punishment for the first, she may not like the company she finds in people who advocate for employers to fire people as punishment for the second.

  65. let’s make something clear: beating your wife (or virtually any act of violence) is a violation of journalistic ethics.
    we don’t wait for a conviction for a hospital to fire some guy who plays Megele.
    day one of Journalism 101: Journalists who do anything that casts a bad light on their publication have failed in their job, and deserve to be terminated.
    does breaking the law mean you’ve done that? not universally. a running joke is “if you have a chance to go to jail for doing your job as a journalist, take it. it’ll help your career.”
    however, a bust for solicitation? yeah, that reflects badly on our editors, so out you go. a bust for possession? you bet your ass. so yeah, a bust for assault and battery? not only do you deserve to be fired, you deserve to have them break your lucky coffee mug on the way out.

    if you want to cry a river about due process, remember that you don’t GET due process in the court of public opinion. and as media is in the business of public opinion (“I’m generally regarded as a source of good information, so people look to me for that information. while they are there, I inform them that Sal the butcher has a sale this week, and Sal pays me to inform them of that”) anything that damages that is harmful to the business. anyone who starts drilling holes in the oil pans of cars at GM would get fired. same deal.

  66. Ok, congratulations, you’ve made your first valid point, however trivial it may be. One miniscule criticism isn’t enough to even begin to justify your rapid bigotry though… what’s the real issue? Hate your mom? Dumped by a woman?

    Would you please explain how I am a bigot and misogynist? Is everyone who opposes feminism a bigot and msogynist?

    Actually, many feminists have criticized male-only military conscription, on the grounds that women will never fully enjoy the rights of citizenship unless they’re expected to bear the obligations equally. See, for instance, Linda Kerber’s No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies. It’s further evidence that Andrew isn’t quite the expert on feminism that he thinks he is.

    And where did I claim to be an expert on feminism?

    Godwin’s Law isn’t “the person who invokes nazis loses” dink.
    the exact wording: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”

    While Godwin’s law doesn’t specifically state that the person who invokes Hitler or Nazis first looses, that is the de facto practice on most boards.

    in other words, it’s inevitable. and guess what, when you start talking to feminists about how stupid and wrong they are and how none of their politics are right or worthwhile, you’re likely to be accused of misogyny. the same way the sky is likely to be accused of being blue. here’s another enevitability. when bringing up stupid shit on the internet, someone’s gonna call you a fucking moron.

    Yeah, you’re right. I should have known that arguing with feminists would get me accused of misogyny.

    FWIW, I’ve always thought that if there is a draft at all it should be gender neutral. Of course, if there were a draft, I’d either leave or, if the option were allowed as it is in Germany, do peaceful alternative service.

    In Germany, you wouldn’t be drafted because only men are. About 1/5 of 18-year old men are called up for a 9 month period of military service, but women are exempt.

    That’s not entirely true. Because most feminists are anti-war, I haven’t seen a call for female soldiers (though plenty have written on the experiences of women in the military). On the other hand, I have seen plenty of criticism about why it is that men and only men are considered worthy of being cannon fodder, and it ain’t pretty.

    As far as I can tell, most feminists see war as pissing matches on a grand and destructive scale, and one that we’re not eager to have anyone participate in. Why we wouldn’t call for equal conscription comes from there. All volunteer army or no army.

    valid in the classical logic sense of “if true, follows logically”, right? I’ve never seen a single feminist who says a male only draft is a good idea. And I’m quite sure feminists in general will make more of a point to bring it up when the draft is actually instituted, since otherwise it’s kind of a moot point.

    One of the most powerful arguments against the ERA was that it would require the military to draft women. That’s actually where Kerber’s title comes from: Phyllis Schlaffly argued that American women had “a constitutional right to be ladies” and therefore not to participate in that sordid business. Anti-feminists, not feminists, were the people howling about women’s right to be protected from the draft.

    I wasn’t refering to conscription in the US, because it currently is suspended. I was saying that feminists never criticize males-only conscription in other countries, including Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and other countries they typically praise as being egalitarian.

  67. I wasn’t aware those countries even have a draft anymore. Germany’s draft was ruled constitutional in 2002, and in 2004, plans where put in place to dismantle it anyway (and for the record, the German draft allows people to opt out into community service) and Sweden considering opening up the draft to women.

    all three of them have low instances of combat, short terms of service, and easy access to consciencious objector status.

    nevermind what a strawman that is. that’s akin to saying you don’t complain enough about the Liberal Democratic Party’s (which is neither) near monopolistic rule on the Japanese Diet, and if you care about the right of individuals to self govern, you should be making a big huff about it. or that teamsters should be constantly petitioning the government to legalize prostitution so the oppressed women in the sex industry can unionize and get better pay and working conditions.
    it’s outside the scope of any reasonable expectation.

    but even ignoring THAT part, Lauren’s statement about military pissing matches, which you blockquoted, doesn’t specify US. which means RIGHT FUCKING THERE you saw a feminist say a men’s only draft is bad, in an unambiguous statement condemning the draft in any country.

  68. And where did I claim to be an expert on feminism?

    Right here: No, I know exactly what feminism is. I don’t need a “reading list” to learn more about it. I have better things to do than read Andrea Dworkin’s screed or Valerie Solanas’s revision of Mein Kampf.

  69. I don’t think we’re going to agree on this, but I’d appreciate the chance to expand upon by point.

    Jill has a problem with me characterising spousal abuse as part of someone’s “private life”. By “private life” I mean his life out of work hours. I think David makes my counter-point very well: employers don’t (and shouldn’t) have rights over every part of their employees lives. They’re entitled to discipline them for what they do “on the clock”, but what they do outside of this should be none of their business.

    If we erode this principle then we all get exposed to a great deal of arbitrary power. I appreciate that many of you want to deal mercilessly with people who beat their wives, and I sympathise with this. But if you let employers do this, then you haven’t got any grounds for stopping them disciplining you for doing a variety of other things you may want to do in your spare time.

    I think this is mythago and karpad’s position – they’re want employers to be able to whatever they want to people who have done something “wrong”, and aren’t really interested in due process or contraining the power of employers. But I think the moment either of them got arrested as a women’s rights rally they’d both change their minds.

  70. I think this is mythago and karpad’s position – they’re want employers to be able to whatever they want to people who have done something “wrong”, and aren’t really interested in due process or contraining the power of employers.

    “mythago’s position” is stating what employers can and cannot do. You are laboring under the common misconception that it is illegal for employers to fire people except when there is a really good reason to do so. “Due process” applies to the courts, not to your job.

    Once again, for people who have yet to find it out the hard way: the basic rule in the law is that everyone is an AT-WILL EMPLOYEE. This means your boss can fire you for any reason, or no reason at all, except in a limited set of circumstances carved out by other laws:

    –You have a collective-bargaining agreement, through a union, limiting your employer’s discretion to fire you.

    –You have an employment contract ditto.

    –The firing was for a reason deemed illegal (e.g. your boss thought you were Japanese).

    Now, with the little recap out of the way, y’all are making a second grievous error: when you are arrested and charged with a crime, it stops being about what you did in your bedroom and in your “private life”. This is not about a rumor that Steinberg played BDSM games with his wife, or that she turned up with a bruise at work. Nor was it an illegal act that many people think ought to be legal (such as smoking pot) and therefore, even though no longer private, still none of his employer’s business.

    Here’s another little rule: when you do stupid shit in public that makes your employer look bad by association, the employer tends to fire you.

  71. Andrew – what is your vision of a “gender paradise”? You say that you oppose discrimination against men and women, but all you do is trash feminism. By the way, Andrea Dworkin and Valerie Solanas are not mainstream feminists – some feminists consider Solanas especially so hateful against men that she is not a feminist. Saying that those two represent feminist philosophy is like saying that Fred Phelps and Randall Terry represent all Christians.

    In general: I wouldn’t compare the plight of conscripted soldiers in liberal democracies to the plight of women in Islamic fundamentalist countries. If they are truly liberal democracies, then the men have a right to vote and thus change the government if they hate being drafted, they have legal rights against mistreatment and abuse and they probably have conscientious objector status. Women in some Islamic countries do not even have the right to vote (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, I think), in Saudi Arabia they can’t drive, in Pakistan the testimony of four women is equal to that of one man and a man can rape a woman in front of female witnesses and he won’t get convicted (and the majority of women in prison are rape victims who have committed “adultery”) and in Iran for a long time, women were largely denied freedom of expression.

  72. “karpad’s position” is actually similar to mythago’s, that it doesn’t really matter what you think is “fair,” since we live in the world of legal, with the added point that, specifically, media has more it needs to hang it’s reputation on, and damage is done with a reported arrest. All a newspaper sells is it’s name. Damaging it by getting your ass arrested is a terminable offense.
    I don’t care about workers in industries that don’t trade on reputation. that’s a hypothetical which I’m not talking about. News comes out, “Stienberg beats his wife.” (which, by the way, means it’s no longer private) the paper has a choice. fire his ass, or keep him on staff and defend him against the enevitable attacks. every second they spend defending the guy is a second they AREN’T reporting the news, and are using their good name to play lawyer for some jerk. and anyone who isn’t convinced (remember, court of public opinion, most people will still be convinced of guilt, even if acquitted. Remember OJ?) is going to ask themselves “why am I wasting my time reading the garbage?” and his spouse abuse “private matter” is damaging the company’s bottom line, no different than a guy who shows up to work at Domino’s Pizza drunk.

  73. I would also like to point out that once the criminal justice system comes into the picture, the behavior is no longer private.

  74. I was saying that feminists never criticize males-only conscription in other countries, including Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and other countries they typically praise as being egalitarian.

    Andrew, a number of years before you were born I worked in a group that was working to defeat the new draft registration laws introduced by Carter and supported by Reagan. This group encouraged resistance to the law by encouraging young men to refuse to register for the draft, as well as by encouraging ineligible people (such as older men and women) to register falsely in order to gum up the works.

    This group was based in Berkeley. It met on the Berkeley campus. A majority of its members were women. A majority of them – perhaps all of them – were feminists, including a not inconsiderable number of Womens Studies majors.

    In other words, the bulk of work done to oppose conscription in that group was done by Berkeley feminists. And that was one group out of a network of many similar ones. I spent a fair amount of time traveling from place too place back then, meeting up with anti-draft organizers, and guess what? most of them were feminists.

    In other other words, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

    And there’s nothing particularly wrong with that. I mostly didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about when I was 18, either. But I made sure to listen to people when they disagreed with me.

    It’s the only way you’ll learn. A word to the wise.

  75. The first is an illegal act which Jill finds abhorrent, and the second (conception=becoming pregnant) is an act which other people find abhorrent in some circumstances and would like to make illegal. In advocating for employers to fire people as punishment for the first, she may not like the company she finds in people who advocate for employers to fire people as punishment for the second.

    Who the hell wants to make conception/becoming pregnant illegal? Your comparison doesn’t logically follow at all. I’m saying that if a public figure whose job requires him to represent an organization breaks the law — commits, in fact, a violent crime that society agrees is abhorrent — he should be duly dealt with by his employer. I’m not saying that his employer should fire him as a punishment; I’m saying that as a media organization, the Sun-Times has a reputation that depends largely on the their staff. When a member of their staff breaks the law in a way that is deemed socially unacceptable (beating his wife, setting up a meth lab in his basement, engaging in fraud, molesting little boys, whatever), the newspaper should do what it needs to in order to protect its own reputation as an organization that does not tolerate such huge ethical breaches.

    There’s a big difference between saying that a public figure should be suspended for committing a crime and saying that any person (public or not) should be fired for doing something which is perfectly legal, natural and even expected (like getting pregnant). I mean come on, you’ve gotta be able to come up with a better argument than that.

  76. Who the hell wants to make conception/becoming pregnant illegal?

    I initially read it that way too, I think she meant there are those who think it’s abhorrent that some have deemed that pregnancy begins at conception instead of implantantion (I’ve not heard any of us who are more clinically astute claim we want to make it illegal for people to ignorantly believe otherwise though).

  78. Would anyone here even deign to consider the possibility that the incident that proceeded his arrest involved both of them becoming physical?

    Too often only the man is charged/arrested in this type of incident as either A) he is reluctant to implicate his wife (it’s embarrassing/who will look after the kids if their both in jail?); or B) in a “he said/she said” situation the police will almost uniformly accept as true any allegations made by the woman.

    Furthermore-and this will no doubt illicit much flaming of me but I must ask it nonetheless- while Steinberg’s actions were clearly illegal what of the psychological/emotional abuse that some women dish out upon men, the incessant, unyielding badgering and hectoring that may lead a man to act in such a way?

    Chile just passed some laws designed to protect women from emotional abuse and trauma so I must ask where is such legislation designed to protect men?

    Again, I know nothing at all of the facts of the Steinberg’s argument but it is not at all uncommon for men to “snap” when facing such verbal harangues.

    While physical violence should not be tolerated in any case it must nonetheless be examined in the context in which it occurred.

    Women, when they lash out physically against men who have emotionally or psychologically abused them are often hailed as heroes.

    What if the same situation were to occur and the abused person was the man?

    Would you still hail his actions as heroic for putting a stop to his abuse through violence?

    Though these may be unsettling questions they must be addressed.

    Please don’t flame me as I am asking them with all due respect in the interest of having an even-handed discussion about this issue.

    Thank you.

  79. I’m not saying that his employer should fire him as a punishment; I’m saying that as a media organization, the Sun-Times has a reputation that depends largely on the their staff.

    I agree with you, so far as that goes. The problem is that it is fantastically easy to conflate a firing to preserve the employer’s reputation, and a firing as punishment for some legal and/or moral transgression. The first I’m okay with, the second I am absolutely opposed to, and I don’t believe the two can be effectively segregated in practice. What you end up with is Henry Ford sending out private investigators to make sure his employees are living what he believes to be a respectable lifestyle.

    Who the hell wants to make conception/becoming pregnant illegal?
    *****
    Well, fuck, I spoke too soon. See here.

    Prescience is sometimes a gift, but more often a curse.

  80. Andrew, the section of mine that you quoted above on conscription involves worldwide conscription. In America, we call it the draft, hence my assumption that we were talking world politics.

    Do a simple search and come back later to concede you are flagrantly wrong on this accusation of what feminists do and do not address. I’ll be waiting.

  81. Uh oh, Andrew. She’s going to meet you in the parking lot at 3pm. You’d better show up, or the whole school will laugh at you for being afraid of a whupping from a girl.

  82. Would anyone here even deign to consider the possibility that the incident that proceeded his arrest involved both of them becoming physical?

    Too often only the man is charged/arrested in this type of incident as either A) he is reluctant to implicate his wife (it’s embarrassing/who will look after the kids if their both in jail?); or B) in a “he said/she said” situation the police will almost uniformly accept as true any allegations made by the woman.

    Considering that (a) he pretty much admitted to it, (b) he tried to prevent her from calling the police, and (c) she had bruises on her face, I would say that this isn’t a he-said/she-said situation in which it’s clear that both parties got out of hand. She felt threatened enough to call the police (and let me throw it out there that when you’ve been married to someone for 15 years, you probably don’t take calling the police on them lightly); he tried to take the phone away. He doesn’t appear to have any physical injuries; she does. Obviously his guilt will be left up to a court, but based on the facts at hand, it’s not looking like a mutual fight.

    while Steinberg’s actions were clearly illegal what of the psychological/emotional abuse that some women dish out upon men, the incessant, unyielding badgering and hectoring that may lead a man to act in such a way?

    I think that both parties in a relationship should have some recourse for mental and emotional abuse. However, “badgering” your husband to do the dishes or pick up his own damn socks doesn’t cut it. And, as most of us learned in kindergarten, hitting is not an appropriate response to being teased, hectored or harassed. I’m not trying to downplay the effects of emotional abuse; it’s terrible and often difficult to quantify, and not dealt with properly under our current legal system and domestic violence laws. But it’s not an excuse for hitting someone.

  84. all three of them have low instances of combat, short terms of service, and easy access to consciencious objector status.

    It’s still discriminatory, dumbfuck.

    Right here: No, I know exactly what feminism is. I don’t need a “reading list” to learn more about it. I have better things to do than read Andrea Dworkin’s screed or Valerie Solanas’s revision of Mein Kampf.

    I didn’t claim to be an expert on feminism, I just said I know what it is.

    Andrew – what is your vision of a “gender paradise”? You say that you oppose discrimination against men and women, but all you do is trash feminism. By the way, Andrea Dworkin and Valerie Solanas are not mainstream feminists – some feminists consider Solanas especially so hateful against men that she is not a feminist. Saying that those two represent feminist philosophy is like saying that Fred Phelps and Randall Terry represent all Christians.

    So you can’t oppose discrimination and feminism at the same time? I oppose feminism because feminism in America isn’t about equal rights anymore and, as I have written before, it’s about Marxism and special privileges. I admit I should not have used Valerie Solanas as an example, but Andrea Dworkin is admired by mainstream feminists and feminist organizations, including NOW.

    In general: I wouldn’t compare the plight of conscripted soldiers in liberal democracies to the plight of women in Islamic fundamentalist countries. If they are truly liberal democracies, then the men have a right to vote and thus change the government if they hate being drafted, they have legal rights against mistreatment and abuse and they probably have conscientious objector status. Women in some Islamic countries do not even have the right to vote (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, I think), in Saudi Arabia they can’t drive, in Pakistan the testimony of four women is equal to that of one man and a man can rape a woman in front of female witnesses and he won’t get convicted (and the majority of women in prison are rape victims who have committed “adultery”) and in Iran for a long time, women were largely denied freedom of expression.

    Even though male conscripts have legal rights and the possibility of CO status, it is still a form of anti-male discrimination. And keep in mind that many countries that practice males-only conscription are third-world countries with atrocious human rights records. So obviously CO status and legal rights against mistreatment don’t exist in those militaries.

    I’m not arguing that countries should correct this by conscripting women – they should abolish all conscription, whether it’s males-only or universal. And I wasn’t defending the discriminatory laws in Islamic countries. I was merely saying that discrimination against men exists in many countries in the form of males-only conscription, but gets little or no attention and criticism. I just think it’s hypocritical that any country that discriminates against women is condemned by the UN, US government, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and feminist groups, yet if a country practices males-only conscription, all of those organizations are silent.

    Andrew, a number of years before you were born I worked in a group that was working to defeat the new draft registration laws introduced by Carter and supported by Reagan. This group encouraged resistance to the law by encouraging young men to refuse to register for the draft, as well as by encouraging ineligible people (such as older men and women) to register falsely in order to gum up the works.

    This group was based in Berkeley. It met on the Berkeley campus. A majority of its members were women. A majority of them – perhaps all of them – were feminists, including a not inconsiderable number of Womens Studies majors.

    In other words, the bulk of work done to oppose conscription in that group was done by Berkeley feminists. And that was one group out of a network of many similar ones. I spent a fair amount of time traveling from place too place back then, meeting up with anti-draft organizers, and guess what? most of them were feminists.

    I’m not surprised you attended Berkeley. I’m more surprised as to why the hell a man would ever become a radical feminist. Seems like an oxymoron. And I doubt the Berkeley feminists opposed Selective Service registration because they thought it was anti-male discrimination. They probably were just doing it because of their radical leftist and anti-military political views. And my statement wasn’t only about conscription in the US, it was about males-only conscription in other countries, particularly in Europe, that feminists (and human rights groups, too) never condemn as being discriminatory.

    In other other words, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

    Yeah, just because I didn’t know about the actions of some obscure radical feminists at Berkeley in 1980 that means I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.

    And there’s nothing particularly wrong with that. I mostly didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about when I was 18, either. But I made sure to listen to people when they disagreed with me.

    Well not much has changed – you still don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Previously, you’ve claimed that I’m a wingnut just because I oppose gender feminism. Well then most Americans are wingnuts, too.

    It’s the only way you’ll learn. A word to the wise.

    I hope you reclaim your Y chromosome before it’s gone forever.

    Andrew, the section of mine that you quoted above on conscription involves worldwide conscription. In America, we call it the draft, hence my assumption that we were talking world politics.

    Do a simple search and come back later to concede you are flagrantly wrong on this accusation of what feminists do and do not address. I’ll be waiting.

    I was talking about world politics. Yes, I know that you and other feminists think conscription be abolished, but I’ve never heard a feminist acknowledge that it discriminates against men. They always say that it should never be used or try to claim that males-only conscription is discrimintory against women.

    Uh oh, Andrew. She’s going to meet you in the parking lot at 3pm. You’d better show up, or the whole school will laugh at you for being afraid of a whupping from a girl.

    Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

  85. Yeah, just because I didn’t know about the actions of some obscure radical feminists at Berkeley in 1980 that means I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.

    Man, 1980… ancient fuckin’ history!

  86. I was talking about world politics. Yes, I know that you and other feminists think conscription be abolished, but I’ve never heard a feminist acknowledge that it discriminates against men. They always say that it should never be used or try to claim that males-only conscription is discrimintory against women.

    You would hear about that if you read any feminist work. Do an article search, man. Seriously.

  87. so yes then, Andrew, it is just as bad that men in Germany are forced to do community service for 9 months in their life as it is that women are executed for being raped in Saudi Arabia. exact parity
    quid pro quo.

    Andrew, this shit you’re talking about is such a common gripe among your type there’s a fucking acronym: PHMT. Patriarchy Hurts Men Too. it’s a fucking given. EVERY feminist EVER talks about it, at least briefly. before reminding the guy who says “well what about murder rates being higher in men?”
    it hurts women a hell of a lot more. in everyday ways. not every guy is murdered. EVERY woman has to deal with shitstains eyeraping them when they get on the bus. and it’s creepy as hell and makes them feel horrible. it reminds them that they’re lesser, that violence can be perpetrated against them and people will ignore it.
    lets do some math on how the patriarchy hurts men, shall we? 5.6 people out of 100,000 are murdered every year. of that, about 75 percent are women. removing women (and the share of men which would put men and women as equally murdered) you get about 3 men out of 100000 killed unfairly every year. let’s multiply that by 50 or so for the duration of a life, rather than a single year, so 150 men out of every 100,000 will end up dying of murder instead at some point (that’s pretty fuzzy. the figure for the murder rates start at age 12, and murder becomes less likely as you get older. but we’re playing it fast and loose)
    let’s say 1 in 4 is grossly inflated. lets say only 1 in 100 women is ever a victim of rape. guess what?
    it’s still 150 men getting victimized compared to 1000 women. PHMT, but women get hurt alot more.

    the point of all of this? you is dumb. dumb as hell.

  89. I’m curious as to why only one person (read woman) has addressed the questions in my previous post.

    I hope it is not because they are so fundamentally in opposition to the “man bad/woman good, case closed” mind-set that is, alas, promulgated by so many female-centric television shows and magazines that they are being dismissed outright as something not even worth adressing.

    I expected a more thoughtful – if not necessarilly insightful – dialogue on this board.

  90. it reminds them that they’re lesser, that violence can be perpetrated against them and people will ignore it.

    Karpad, I was reading this article just now about Rania Baz, a TV presenter in Saudi Arabia who broke the taboo on talking about violence against women.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1585030,00.html

    “The crucial thing,” says Baz, “is that the structure of society – the fact that a woman cannot drive or travel without authorisation, for example – gives a special sense of strength to the man. And this strength is directly connected to the violence. It creates a sense of immunity; that he can do whatever he wants, without sanction. The core issue is not the violence itself, it is this immunity for men, the idea that men can do what they like. It is the society of which the violence is an expression.”

  91. . I was saying that feminists never criticize males-only conscription in other countries, including Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and other countries they typically praise as being egalitarian.

    … Because feminists, according to Andrew, don’t exist in other countries. Finnish feminists aren’t big fans of the conscription system here. (Many say that guys learn misogynistic attitudes in the military. And that it is unfair and sexist to men, and that it marginalizes women as “less patriotic citizens”.)

    So could it be that American feminists don’t think that many European countries really need their help in solving gender issues and injustice, that their attentions are better served in focusing on, say, Middle East. European feminists got their home turf covered pretty well. 🙂

  92. European feminists got their home turf covered pretty well. 🙂

    really? there are women in Europe? I thought it was all men with funny beards, who all smoke and smell funny. who get jollies running pogroms and drinking wine.

  93. Man, 1980… ancient fuckin’ history!

    He was refering to some obscure group of feminists from Berkeley in 1980. Do you know every feminist organization in America? And I bet if they had actually succeeded at their anti-draft registration campaign they would have been somewhat well-known, but they failed miserably.

    You would hear about that if you read any feminist work. Do an article search, man. Seriously.

    I did a search. I found that most articles by feminists who criticize conscription claim that it discriminates against women.

    so yes then, Andrew, it is just as bad that men in Germany are forced to do community service for 9 months in their life as it is that women are executed for being raped in Saudi Arabia. exact parity
    quid pro quo.

    Andrew, this shit you’re talking about is such a common gripe among your type there’s a fucking acronym: PHMT. Patriarchy Hurts Men Too. it’s a fucking given. EVERY feminist EVER talks about it, at least briefly. before reminding the guy who says “well what about murder rates being higher in men?”
    it hurts women a hell of a lot more. in everyday ways. not every guy is murdered. EVERY woman has to deal with shitstains eyeraping them when they get on the bus. and it’s creepy as hell and makes them feel horrible. it reminds them that they’re lesser, that violence can be perpetrated against them and people will ignore it.
    lets do some math on how the patriarchy hurts men, shall we? 5.6 people out of 100,000 are murdered every year. of that, about 75 percent are women. removing women (and the share of men which would put men and women as equally murdered) you get about 3 men out of 100000 killed unfairly every year. let’s multiply that by 50 or so for the duration of a life, rather than a single year, so 150 men out of every 100,000 will end up dying of murder instead at some point (that’s pretty fuzzy. the figure for the murder rates start at age 12, and murder becomes less likely as you get older. but we’re playing it fast and loose)
    let’s say 1 in 4 is grossly inflated. lets say only 1 in 100 women is ever a victim of rape. guess what?
    it’s still 150 men getting victimized compared to 1000 women. PHMT, but women get hurt alot more.

    the point of all of this? you is dumb. dumb as hell.

    Ahh, I get to decipher the screed of karpad once again. I still don’t understand the abundance of misandronist male radical feminists. Of course, I don’t think it would be correct to refer to a radical feminist with a Y chromosome as male.

    Anyways, why do you call conscription “community service”? There is a very big difference between the two. So you don’t think that males-only conscription is discriminatory? Also, keep in mind that many of the countries practicing males-only conscription are currently involved in an armed conflict, so the number of male conscripts killed annually is far greater than the number of honor killings in Saudia Arabia, so yes I would consider conscription worse than honor killings. But they both should be abolished.

    In your next “paragraph” you mention that the “patriarchy” hurts women because they get eyeraped on buses. What do you mean by “eyeraped”? And what do you mean by your statement that violence against women is ignored? Yes, it’s unfortunately ignored in certain third-world countries, but not in America. The next part of your paragraph reveals much of your misandrony. So the fact that 75% of homicide victims are men doesn’t matter since women get raped? That doesn’t make much sense. And by the way, not all rape victims are women.

  94. I don’t feel misandry. I’m misanthropic. big difference. but in particular, I hate dicks like you.

    He was refering to some obscure group of feminists from Berkeley in 1980.

    considering you singled out feminists from Berkeley as being worthy of derision, yeah, it is kind of important. and makes you look like a tool.

    I thought about writing a thoughtful reply, explaining to you why you’re wrong, and why you’re an idiot. but then it really became clear you’re just being a dick and deliberately misreading. PHMT. hurts men TOO. as in “as well.” yes, it matters. But it isn’t the ONLY thing that matters, and you seem to think it is.

    if you don’t know what eyerape is. I’d reccommend some reading on “gaze” as a social construct. But of course, you don’t “need to read” to know about things. because… you have magic osmosis powers or something.

    And if you won’t admit that violence against women is grossly underreported and frequently dismissed as “she was asking for it,” you’re not living on the same planet. time to shut up.

  95. Joining late, but I’d really like to know exactly what feminism is “about Marxism” means. Is that like, it’s “about half past three” or “there are werewolves about” or “that drunk is about to pass out” or what?

  97. considering you singled out feminists from Berkeley as being worthy of derision, yeah, it is kind of important. and makes you look like a tool.

    How did I single them out as being worthy of derision? All I did was question why I’m supposed to know the details of an obscure anti-draft registration feminist group from Berkeley.

    I thought about writing a thoughtful reply, explaining to you why you’re wrong, and why you’re an idiot. but then it really became clear you’re just being a dick and deliberately misreading. PHMT. hurts men TOO. as in “as well.” yes, it matters. But it isn’t the ONLY thing that matters, and you seem to think it is.

    I never said that discrimination against men is the only thing that matters and that discrimination against women doesn’t matter. I just said that discrimination against men in the form of males-only conscription recieves little or no criticism even though it exists in roughly 55 countries and noted that if the genders were reversed, there would be an international outcry against it and efforts would be made to abolish it.

    if you don’t know what eyerape is. I’d reccommend some reading on “gaze” as a social construct. But of course, you don’t “need to read” to know about things. because… you have magic osmosis powers or something.

    So looking at a woman is the same thing as raping her?

    And if you won’t admit that violence against women is grossly underreported and frequently dismissed as “she was asking for it,” you’re not living on the same planet. time to shut up.

    I admit that violence against women is underreported, but so is violence against men, who make up a majority of violent crime victims (if you don’t believe me, go to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’s website and see for yourself). And the only people who dismiss rape victims by saying “she was asking for it” are people who really are misogynists.

    I assume your comment on dismissing violence against women is refering to the extremely low percentage of rape cases that result in a conviction. This is because of the high burden of proof required in criminal cases. There was a provision of the 1994 VAWA that allowed rape victims to sue their attackers in federal civil court, where the burden of proof is much lower, but it was struck down by SCOTUS because Congress didn’t have the authority to pass that provision.

    Joining late, but I’d really like to know exactly what feminism is “about Marxism” means. Is that like, it’s “about half past three” or “there are werewolves about” or “that drunk is about to pass out” or what?

    Feminists, like Marxists, don’t want policy decided by legislators. Instead feminists want it decided by judges and anti-discrimination comissions. Feminists want rigid quotas and everything to be absolutely equal (but only when this equality would benefit women). They support Marxist policies such as comparable worth, where a government commission would force employers to pay employees of different jobs but comparable worth the same amount, which completely ignores market forces that lead certain jobs to pay better than others.

    On GOOGLE? What the fuck.

    Um, yes. Is there something wrong with Google?

  98. Google isn’t “articles.” Google looks for websites. If you want theoretical feminist publications, you’re going to have to look beyond the internet. See a peer-reviewed journal or two.

    Feminists want rigid quotas and everything to be absolutely equal (but only when this equality would benefit women).

    Clearly you don’t know the slightest thing about feminism. See also: those peer-reviewed journals I was telling you about.

  99. This feminist eyeraped 10 men today. But then again, I am an oppressor on behalf of the sex that dominates the world. You can tell, since women hold all major political offices and head most corporations.

  100. So looking at a woman is the same thing as raping her?

    which means you haven’t done the reading on gaze as a social construct. You know. where it means something different.

    those peer-reviewed journals I was telling you about.

    yeah, he’ll read them. at least the title. then, when he’s pulling shit out of his ass, he has a title to use for his bullshit.

    This feminist eyeraped 10 men today. But then again, I am an oppressor on behalf of the sex that dominates the world. You can tell, since women hold all major political offices and head most corporations.

    which is why the implicit threat of eyerape is so frightening, dangerous, and humiliating to those poor men. Shame on you, Amanda! Sockpuppet Marat says when the revolution comes, you will not be spared.

  102. Google isn’t “articles.” Google looks for websites. If you want theoretical feminist publications, you’re going to have to look beyond the internet. See a peer-reviewed journal or two.

    Clearly you don’t know the slightest thing about feminism. See also: those peer-reviewed journals I was telling you about.

    A peer-reviewed feminist journal is about as credible as a peer-reviewed creationist journal.

    which means you haven’t done the reading on gaze as a social construct. You know. where it means something different.

    The article you linked be to was laughable. So men aren’t supposed to look at women because that means we are dominant? How do you propose preventing men from looking at women? What happens if a woman gazes at a man? Is that eyerape, too, or is it some form of affirmative action?

  103. You know, Andrew, feminists get published in far more than feminist journals. You said you are a college freshman? Try running your theories past your professors for me. I’d love to hear what they think.

  105. Andrew:
    Yep, some countries that have conscription are involved in armed conflicts. In which, apparently, only (or even mostly) male conscripts are killed, not women, like in Chechnya. Oh, wait.
    And also, about the “human rights organizations don’t care about forced conscription”, I guess Amnesty International isn’t a human rights organization then? Oh, wait again.
    And feminist/profeminist men aren’t really male? Gee, that’s such an original insult.
    Not to mention that usually, when it comes to smaller, more international conflicts, countries with conscription send soldiers that are volunteers (usually with special training and professional or semi-professional status), not basic conscripts, like that Danish submarine in Iraq War 2.0.
    But hey, I’m not holding my hopes up for you actually knowing what you talk about, because you already know that feminism and human rights -organizations are bad, and you won’t do any research because they are bad. Pfft.

  106. The article you linked be to was laughable. So men aren’t supposed to look at women because that means we are dominant?

    wow. missed the fucking point entirely. I give up trying to talk sense. I don’t know if the people who can ban you are fed up yet, but I sure am, and will not miss you if they do.

    You may fire when ready, commander.

    /Grand Moff Tarkin

  107. Drug laws are supported by most Democratic politicians, including Bill Clinton, who attempted to prove that he was tough on crime and spent billions on enforcement of drug laws new prisons, harsher sentances, and expanded the death penalty.

    Yeah, I’ve tried to get both sides to back down on the war on drugs, but they won’t listen. So I guess I’ll fight my own little battle and try to finish this hootah.

  109. Andrew:

    Interesting, since I’m probably more liberal than most Democrats and feminists. Unlike that wonderful feminist, Hillary Clinton, I opposed the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, the war it green-lighted, and the subsequent occupation. Unlike the feminist John Kerry, I support same-sex marriage.

    Well, that settles it, then. Congratulations on having managed to move to the left of two weak-kneed moderate Democrat Presidential hopefuls. I’m sure I’m not alone here in standing in awe of your relentless ideological commitment.

    It’s kind of hypocritical for you to be criticizing my reading comprehension skills since you and other gender feminists obviously can’t read the US Constitution or you would know that the 14th Ammendment doesn’t contain a “right to privacy.”

    (1) You keep using that phrase, “gender feminists.” Just what do you mean by it, anyway? I’m curious, because I keep seeing it used and I have absolutely no idea what it means, if it is supposed to mean anything beyond “feminists that the speaker finds icky.” Could you explain to me what characteristics all and only gender feminists have, which set them apart from the good feminists that you like?

    (2) Portraying the doctrine of a Constitutional right to privacy as if it were the invention of some coven of “gender feminists” is either wilfully ignorant or else disingenuous. If you are going to pride yourself on being able to read, you should also spend a little time reading Supreme Court decisions, especially the majority opinion in Griswold and Roe (authored by those notorious gender feminists William O. Douglas and Harry Blackmun). Of course, you can agree or disagree with the Court’s findings (which incidentally draw on principles underlying the Bill of Rights — especially the 4th Amendment and the 9th Amendment — not just the 14th). But you’ll have to actually address their arguments, not just lamely point at the Constitution (which they, of course, read, and cited in their decisions). And you ought to recognize that your issue is with decades-old settled case law in the United States, not with “gender feminists.”

  110. One more point of curiosity. I ask because this seems to be a very common theme, actually, with people who yell about “radical feminism” or “gender feminism.”

    Andrew:

    No, I know exactly what feminism is. I don’t need a “reading list” to learn more about it. I have better things to do than read Andrea Dworkin’s screed or Valerie Solanas’s revision of Mein Kampf.

    Feminism is not about equality, as I wrote earlier it’s about Marxism and special privleges.

    Question: if you refuse to actually read any major feminist works, then how do you have any idea about “what feminism is?”

  111. Quick question about the original post, just to check I got all that…

    Doesn’t the argument run thus?:

    1. Newspapers need to maintain their reputation to retain readership.
    2. Newspapers, therefore, tend to censure staff members whose actions bring the publication into disrepute.
    3. The newspaper shows no signs of censuring this columnist for domestic violence.
    4. That implies that the newspaper does not consider domestic violence to be a disreputable action.
    5. If that is the case, it would not be a good thing…

  113. “You keep using that phrase, “gender feminists.” Just what do you mean by it, anyway? I’m curious, because I keep seeing it used and I have absolutely no idea what it means, if it is supposed to mean anything beyond “feminists that the speaker finds icky.” Could you explain to me what characteristics all and only gender feminists have, which set them apart from the good feminists that you like?”

    This is an honest attempt at an answer.

    The term “gender feminism” was coined by Christina Hoff Sommers in a book – “Who Stole Feminism”. She divides feminism into two camps.

    * “Equity feminists” which – she says – is a doctrine of equal rights between the sexes (liberal feminism, first wave and beginings of the second).

    * “Gender feminism” which – she says – views domination of women by men as a pervasive system, is opposed to liberalism, and is in favour of socialisation and state action (whenever people mention patriarchy, third wave).

    I think Andrew’s right that conscription is terrible. I’m not sure what he’s trying to achieve by slagging of feminists for it though. I know people on this thread have been trying to minimise it – but conscription is not only wrong in itself, but terribly discriminatory.

    I’ve male friends who’ve lost several years of their lives, while women – in exactly the same situation – haven’t. Feminists have their blind spots like everyone else, variable ages of retirement is another good example of gender discrimination that is never mentioned by feminists. But laws inspired by feminism have proved useful for MRAs who’ve tried to combat these issues. The reason we can make the case against conscription as easily as we do is that generations of feminists have laid the groundwork.

    “And also, about the “human rights organizations don’t care about forced conscription”, I guess Amnesty International isn’t a human rights organization then? Oh, wait again.”

    Amnesty takes no position on conscription (or even discriminatory conscription based on gender). I was surprised too. It is a woefully neglected issue..

    http://www.amnesty.org.uk/amnesty/faq.shtml

  114. Andrew:
    Yep, some countries that have conscription are involved in armed conflicts. In which, apparently, only (or even mostly) male conscripts are killed, not women, like in Chechnya. Oh, wait.
    And also, about the “human rights organizations don’t care about forced conscription”, I guess Amnesty International isn’t a human rights organization then? Oh, wait again.
    And feminist/profeminist men aren’t really male? Gee, that’s such an original insult.
    Not to mention that usually, when it comes to smaller, more international conflicts, countries with conscription send soldiers that are volunteers (usually with special training and professional or semi-professional status), not basic conscripts, like that Danish submarine in Iraq War 2.0.
    But hey, I’m not holding my hopes up for you actually knowing what you talk about, because you already know that feminism and human rights -organizations are bad, and you won’t do any research because they are bad. Pfft.

    Human rights organizations don’t criticize conscription. Human Rights Watch says that conscription, even if it’s discriminatory males-only conscription, isn’t a human rights violation. Amnesty International takes no position on the conscription of adults. They just oppose conscription of children and the lack of opportunities for conscientious objection for both professional and conscript soldiers. Interestingly, both groups work to end discrimination against women. Apparently, discrimination against men is okay, though.

    So much for reading omprehension.

    You said you worked with a group at Berkeley that worked to oppose draft registration laws in the 1980s. I assumed that meant you went to Berkeley.

    Question: if you refuse to actually read any major feminist works, then how do you have any idea about “what feminism is?”

    So anyone who hasn’t read anything by a radical feminist doesn’t know what feminism is?

    Amnesty takes no position on conscription (or even discriminatory conscription based on gender). I was surprised too. It is a woefully neglected issue..

    That was one of my points. Discrimination against women recieves a lot of attention, but discrimination against men doesn’t.

  115. And returning late to the discussion… why am I not surprised that the understanding of Marxism is just as shallow as the understanding of feminism? If one knows little about two things, and has heard that they are both “bad,” then that must mean they are the same thing?
    Should have stayed away, going now…

  116. You said you worked with a group at Berkeley that worked to oppose draft registration laws in the 1980s. I assumed that meant you went to Berkeley.

    Yes, that was my point exactly. Glad to see you’re starting to catch on.

    I hope you reclaim your Y chromosome before it’s gone forever.

    Such big talk from such a little boy. We can play at dicksize wars after you learn how to cut up your own food.

  117. * “Equity feminists” which – she says – is a doctrine of equal rights between the sexes (liberal feminism, first wave and beginings of the second).

    * “Gender feminism” which – she says – views domination of women by men as a pervasive system, is opposed to liberalism, and is in favour of socialisation and state action (whenever people mention patriarchy, third wave).

    Bwa ha ha ha!

    Oh, God.

    This is fucking rich. I think Andrea Dworkin just did a dozen lower-abdominal-target crunches in her grave.

    Sweetie. Darling. If you don’t know enough about feminism to understand that this flow chart is fucked, you will go nowhere. “Gender feminism”–which, I assume, includes “radical feminism” is definitely not primarily associated with the third wave.

    And yes, you aren’t going to understand feminist theory unless you read feminist theorists. Would you expect your views on Aristotle to be taken seriously without having read a damn thing he’d written? Would you expect your views on Hannah Arendt to be taken seriously without having read Eichmann in Jerusalem or any of her other works? I guess so.

  118. No, Andrew. Bigotry is not knowledge. If you had done any research, you would know, for example, that Finland (which is a pretty good country country human rights -wise) is in Amnestys black list because healthy men who refuse both military and the alternative civilian service receive a short prison sentence (controversial subject, I might say). So okay, most human rights organization don’t criticize conscription in itself, and really, non-conscipt army is a rather Anglo-American concept.

  119. Andrew,

    So anyone who hasn’t read anything by a radical feminist doesn’t know what feminism is?

    Well … … … yes.

    It is no sin not to have read very much feminist theory. But it is totally irresponsible to go spouting off about the aims and theoretical claims of the feminist movement when you have made absolutely no effort to find out about what those are from sources available at your nearest bookstore or library. If you went around ranting about the evils of empiricism without ever having read anything by Locke or Hume, then you would be laughed out of the room; if you made confident pronouncements about the poetry of T. S. Eliot while refusing to read any of it, then your opinion would be dismissed out of hand. As well it should be: since you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about (how would you?) and your assertions have exactly as much evidential grounding as if you were just making them up as you go along.

    (Note, incidentally, that I am intentionally ignoring your silly efforts to identify Valerie Solanas as a leading radical feminist, or to beg off on doing the reading when it’s “radical feminists.” Because it’s clear that you haven’t read anything by actual leading radical feminists, and it’s also clear that you haven’t done any serious reading of non-radical feminist theory, either.)

    nik,

    Thanks for your efforts at an answer. I’m afraid I wasn’t clear enough in my question, though. I know that the term comes from “Who Stole Feminism?” but I say that I don’t know what it means because I can’t find any coherent thread in Christina Hoff Sommers’ usage of the terms, or for that matter in the use by those who have adopted or adapted the distinction from her writing. It rather seems to me that it’s part of a long-standing tradition of Radical Menace politics in response to the feminist movement — that is, concocting a distinction between “reasonable” feminists and “hysterical” feminists, in order to try to divide the movement in order to make political headway. This has come from both within and without the movement, and the labels are always different — suffragists vs. feminists, “power feminists” vs. “victim feminists,” “moderates” vs. “extremists” (“man-haters,” “feminazis,” etc.), straight feminists vs. lesbian feminists, “First Wave” feminists vs. “Second Wave” feminists, “liberals” vs. “radicals” (there actually is a coherent distinction between first and second wave feminists, and also between liberals and radicals, but these terms have often also been abused in Radical Menace discussions), “sex-positive” or “pro-sex” vs. “anti-sex” (!) feminists, “Third Wave” vs. “Second Wave” feminists, “equality feminists” vs. “difference feminists,” “equity feminists” vs. “gender feminists,” etc. etc. etc. Of course, there are genuine factions within the feminist movement and I’ve no objection to identifying factions where factions exist, but it does seem to me that it’s important to make sure that these are distinctions based on the real distinctions in the thought and practice of the people involved, and not something that merely break down to “the feminists that I feel comfortable with” and “the feminists I don’t like”. When it does, the distinction serves only rhetorical purposes, not theoretical understanding.

    Sorry for the lengthy prologue; this is one of my pet peeves. That said, let’s see how you set out the distinction:

    “Equity feminists” which — she says — is a doctrine of equal rights between the sexes (liberal feminism, first wave and beginings of the second).

    “Gender feminism” which — she says — views domination of women by men as a pervasive system, is opposed to liberalism, and is in favour of socialisation and state action (whenever people mention patriarchy, third wave).

    This is probably consisent with what CHS gives as her “official” definition of equity feminism and gender feminism. But there are a number of problems. First, because they don’t divide the field cleanly, and they leave out some important factions. When she contrasts the “gender feminist” analysis of sexism as a pervasive social system with the “equity feminist” understanding of it in terms of individual violations of equal rights, it seems that she wants to line up her distinction with the liberal/radical distinction; but then why not just use the terms “liberal feminist” and “radical feminist” (which are widely known and originated from within the movement itself), instead of making up your own? I think part of the answer is that Hoff Sommers and many of those who cite her want to move the boundaries so as to move many high-profile liberal feminists from the “reasonable,” “liberal” side of the divide to the “hysterical,” “radical” side. In any case she doesn’t make the distinction cleanly. “Viewing domination of women by men as a pervasive system” and “a doctrine of equal rights between the sexes,” for example, are not mutually exclusive; the first claim has to do with the political question of how sexism operates, whereas the second claim has to do with the separate ethical question of what it is that’s wrong with sexism. You could believe in either, or you could believe in both; and in fact many feminists, historically, have believed in both — for example, First Wave feminists such as Susan B. Anthony or Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Abby Foster Kelly certainly considered the oppression of women to be systematic; they often compared their condition to that of Black slaves and their movement to the Abolition movement and to revolutionary uprisings such as the American Revolution. Many of them also suggested that the primary wrongs of this systemic domination were the violations of individual women’s equal rights that it enabled individual men to routinely commit. So does that make them “equity feminists” or “gender feminists” or both or neither? I don’t know.

    Nor does viewing women’s oppression as systemic commit you one way or the other on the question of state action to remedy oppression; in fact many First and Second Wave feminists who were clearly liberal rather than radical in their orientation put a lot of effort into campaigns for state action or women’s ability to direct state action (e.g. the campaigns for the vote, antidiscrimination law, the ERA). On the other hand, many radical feminists have called for State action in various fields, but many others have been anarchists and/or advocated avoiding State channels. (This includes many lesbian separatists, who I imagine Christina Hoff Sommers would certainly want to include in her “gender feminist” category if she wants to include anybody.) So do pro-state-intervention liberals count as equity feminists, gender feminists, or neither? What about anti-state-intervention radicals? Again, I haven’t got the foggiest, and the problem is I don’t think CHS does either.

    There’s another important criterion that you don’t mention — CHS suggests that “equity feminists” have “equality” (before the law, and possibly before some other prominent social institutions) as their main goal, whereas “gender feminists” reject claims of equality in favor of an political programme based on gender difference, which will either stop the suppression of women’s differences from men, or advantage women over men, or both. (This is part of the reason why Carol Gilligan is a particular object of her wrath.) Here it seems like she is trying to mimic not the liberal / radical distinction, but rather the “equality feminism” / “difference feminism” distinction. I have problems with the latter distinction too, but the chief problem with Hoff Sommers’ distinction is that she seems clearly to think this point is very important, but also seems very clearly to insist that people be lumped together on this point when they actually have nothing in common. For example, “gender feminism” is clearly used to pick out and criticize all of the following: (1) postmodern or poststructuralist feminists who regard gender as entirely performative, (2) radical feminists who regard gender as a socially constructed fiction that is violently enforced as a material political reality, and (3) feminists such as Elizabeth Gould Davis, and maybe Carol Gilligan, who are some sort of biological or spiritual essentialists about gender differences. But if you can be tagged as a “gender feminist” for believing that gender is a fiction that ought to be abolished, and tagged as a “gender feminist” for believing that gender differences are inherent and ineliminable, then again, I don’t have any idea what is being picked out by the term.

  120. Yes, that was my point exactly. Glad to see you’re starting to catch on.

    What was your point? That you went to Berkeley?

    Bwa ha ha ha!

    Oh, God.

    This is fucking rich. I think Andrea Dworkin just did a dozen lower-abdominal-target crunches in her grave.

    Sweetie. Darling. If you don’t know enough about feminism to understand that this flow chart is fucked, you will go nowhere. “Gender feminism”–which, I assume, includes “radical feminism” is definitely not primarily associated with the third wave.

    And yes, you aren’t going to understand feminist theory unless you read feminist theorists. Would you expect your views on Aristotle to be taken seriously without having read a damn thing he’d written? Would you expect your views on Hannah Arendt to be taken seriously without having read Eichmann in Jerusalem or any of her other works? I guess so.

    I didn’t write the stuff that you quoted, that was someone else. And why the hell do you need to read radical feminist screed in order to criticize feminism? Most people criticize communism, but they’ve never read Das Kapital or The Communist Manifesto and most people criticize fascism without having read Mein Kampf. In fact, most people who criticize various religions, theories, and political ideologies probably haven’t any read books by their opponents. I don’t see why I should waste my time reading any feminist books.

    No, Andrew. Bigotry is not knowledge. If you had done any research, you would know, for example, that Finland (which is a pretty good country country human rights -wise) is in Amnestys black list because healthy men who refuse both military and the alternative civilian service receive a short prison sentence (controversial subject, I might say). So okay, most human rights organization don’t criticize conscription in itself, and really, non-conscipt army is a rather Anglo-American concept.

    Conscription is usually discriminatory against males (but not always, such as in Israel, Eritrea, Myanmar, and a few other countries) so it’s of hypocritical for “human rights” organizations to criticize some forms of gender discrimination but not others. Even when conscription is non-discriminatory, it’s still a human rights violation. Conscription is basically government slavery.

    The non-conscript army is not an “Anglo-American concept.” In fact, mass conscription is relatively new. Leaders discovered thousands of years ago that professional volunteers make much better soldiers than conscripts. For example, the sucessful army of Alexander the Great and the Roman legions were made up of professional soldiers, not conscripts. Most European armies during the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and early modern European eras were composed of mercenaries and professional soldiers. Modern conscription only began in France in 1793 and other European countries began using it during the Napoleonic Wars to supplement their small, professional armies that were no match for the massive French conscript army.

  121. Yes, I know. My point is that you know so very little about feminist theory that this didn’t raise any red flags at all. You accepted terms like “gender feminism” and “equity feminism” uncritically, because you have so little acquaintance with the actual factions within feminism that you don’t know “second wave,” “third wave,” “radical,” and, “liberal” feminism from so many holes in the ground. That’s why you need to read the theory before you comment on it.

    Your analogy, btw, is suspect. People who haven’t read The Communist Manifesto have read history books and other writings about communism. You haven’t read any kind of text overview of feminism, any anthology, or any articles in Bust, Bitch, Off Our Backs, or Ms. I doubted–and I guess I’m right–that you’d read Who Stole Feminism? either. You just heard the terms somewhere and didn’t bother to ask anyone whether they actually made sense. Come to find out, they don’t.

  124. Old enough to listen when numerous people are taking great pains to try to teach me about something I know little about.

    And old enough to school your ass.

  126. Meanwhile amidst all the erstwhile didactic cerebral diddling no one else has been courteous enough to answer any of my questions about women who abuse men.

    The silence speaks volumes.

    And regarding “the male gaze” and “eyerape,” read some Camile Paglia.

    If every time a woman feels uncomfortable you call it “rape” you are doing a disservice to both rape victims and, in an oddly axiomatically way, rapists themselves.

  127. Don’t expect an answer from feminists on the subject of women abusing men. They and their domestic violence/divorce industry are too busy perpetrating the myth that men are always the abusers and women are always the victims, despite the fact that according to a 1998 DoJ study and others have reported that approximately 35% of domestic violence victims are men.

  128. Damn. That should have said “despite the fact that according to a 1998 DoJ study and other studies, approximately 35% of domestic violence victims are men.”

  129. We may have answered thoughtfully if Andrew hadn’t set the tone. Even though we’ve tried to bring it back to civility by answering his questions and accusations, we still get the same:

    “I don’t know jack shit about feminist thought except what anti-feminists say, but let me tell you silly nitwits what it’s about.”

    But for what it’s worth, I think Jill’s answer to your questions, CT, is a-okay, thereby not prompting me to directly answer your questions (that seem largely rhetorical anyway).

  130. But Lauren, isn’t treating one person (me) based on your experience with another of the same gender (this Andrew joker) sexist in and of itself and, hence, inherintly antithetical to feminist ideals?

    Perhaps it’s a tad of a stretch (and the sentiment is clearly not the same mind you) but how is this different from someone wearing a t-shirt festooned with “All Women are Whores” or some such drivel.

    It’s clearly not true but as long as he believes in his own impeached ideas he will act upon them in all his dealings with women.

    Is your reaction (specifically the general non-reaction I have recieved on this board) any different?

    Being dismissive of me, as a person, based upon how you view me as a man.

    Is my insight being devalued because I have been de-objectified to the extent that I am no longer a welcome participant in these discussiions.

    Although his tone was crass and his presentation immature Andrew’s sentiment regarding the “divorce industry” is not markedly far from my own as well as many other intelligent men I that know.

    Just some things to ponder.

  131. Being dismissive of me, as a person, based upon how you view me as a man.

    Um, let’s put an end to this assumption right now. I didn’t address your questions, not because you are a man, but because someone else already did. As I stated above very clearly.

    Is my insight being devalued because I have been de-objectified to the extent that I am no longer a welcome participant in these discussiions.

    Simply, I’m quite busy. A few weeks ago I probably would have been bored enough, not having had anything to do, to have answered your questions in great detail. Right now I’m procrastinating on something else, hence this response.

    But you did get an answer to your questions, and a thoughtful answer at that.

  132. Meanwhile amidst all the erstwhile didactic cerebral diddling no one else has been courteous enough to answer any of my questions about women who abuse men.

    Read the thread. I addressed it way back here.

    No one is denying that abuse of men happens. But the article cited in the original post (anyone remember that?) was about a guy who abused his wife.

    And speaking of the original post, let’s get back to that. Ridiculous off-topic posts will be deleted.

  133. Consider_This: “Meanwhile amidst all the erstwhile didactic cerebral diddling no one else has been courteous enough to answer any of my questions about women who abuse men.”

    Abuse is bad. Women shouldn’t do it to men. If a female Op-Ed columnist were under investigation and basically copped to beating her husband until he bruised, I’d think that she should probably be suspended and possibly fired, too. Happy?

    On the other hand, I’m not sure that your example (“the bitch is always on my case about something!”) is a plausible candidate for a form of abuse. Nor is physical assault an appropriate way to respond to even the worst forms of emotional abuse.

  136. Consider_This:

    Actually Rad Geek, and everyone else, according to this report: he didn’t actually hit her intentionally.

    So please don’t toss around terms like “beat until bruised.”

    You ought to look up what “RTFA” stands for. The article, which I did read, is not the same article as the one you linked below, and it does not specify how the bruises came about. But since Mr. Steinberg was charged with “domestic battery,” the likely cause was not hard to infer. If that inference was mistaken, and a different article that was not linked from here reveals this, then you’re right to point that out, but you’ll have to find a new phrase for the purposes of rhetorical jabs.

    That said, here’s what the news report you linked to on the topic says:

    At about 9 p.m., “she decided to call the police, at which time he either attempted to get the phone out of her hand or strike her, and he knocked the phone and hit her in the head with the phone,” Matheny said. “Then he took the connector out of the wall so she couldn’t call the police.”

    You need to read this article more carefully yourself if you think that it states “he didn’t actually hit her intentionally.” Matheny suggests two different possibilities: (1) Steinberg tried to grab the phone out of her hand, bashed the phone into her head in the process, and then yanked the phone out of the wall; (2) Steinberg tried to hit her with his hand, bashed the phone into her head in the process, and then yanked the phone out of the wall.

    If (1) is the case, it might be appropriate to say that “he didn’t actually hit her intentionally;” the blow was the unintentional result of an intentional assault of a different kind (ripping the phone out of her hand). If (2) is the case then of course he did hit her intentionally, since he bloody well intended to strike her and that’s what he did, although he ended up striking something else that ended up striking her. In the former case it might not be appropriate to say that he “beat” her, since that suggests that the blow was intentional. In the latter case it certainly is appropriate to say that he “beat” her, since that’s what you call it when you intentionally sock somebody in the head. In either case he was intentionally assaulting her and she ended up struck and bruised as a result. I’m not sure what impact, if any, you think that any of this is supposed to have on the debate, except to allow you to issue sleazy dismissals implying that it was all some kind of big accident — a position that not even Steinberg himself takes.

  137. Hey, hit a hotel clerk with a phone and it’s assault, but hit your wife, and it’s a private issue.

  138. But Lauren, isn’t treating one person (me) based on your experience with another of the same gender (this Andrew joker) sexist in and of itself and, hence, inherintly antithetical to feminist ideals?

    Andrew set the tone of the discussion, not the tone for responding to all men. In other words, no, the delay wouldn’t have been sexist even if someone else hadn’t already answered your questions.

  139. Damn. That should have said “despite the fact that according to a 1998 DoJ study and other studies, approximately 35% of domestic violence victims are men.”

    That’s weird. This report from 1996 showed that more than eight in ten victims of intimate violence are female.

    http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/vi.pdf

    (See page 11.)

  140. Let me reiterate for anyone who hasn’t caught on. This kid is 18.

    It’s interesting you note that, because one of the things I was thinking about the “modern conscription” post, is that either the person has read some of the classics of the history of war and international relations (including the work of Barbara Tuchman on World War I), or has been cutting and pasting from the encyclopedia brittanica (or even better, has cut and pasted from an online term paper site/lazy blogger that plagiarized from somewhere else). My favorite was a plagiarist I caught and showed the original source, and the young scholar responded, “but that’s not even where I copied it from!”

    Let’s hope our young friend limits the practice to blog posting (although, it would be easy enough to link to such a source), otherwise there are going to be more teachers besides those of us here who find his arguments objectionable. This goes to the point several people have made here, that finding and repeating assertions does not equate research, or even thinking.

  141. But Lauren, isn’t treating one person (me) based on your experience with another of the same gender (this Andrew joker) sexist in and of itself and, hence, inherintly antithetical to feminist ideals?

    Yes, Lauren! How can you call yourself a feminist unless you bend over backwards to cater to the potential hurt feelings of all men in every situation?

    Or at least just, you know, bend over. That’s the only part that really matters.

  142. That’s weird. This report from 1996 showed that more than eight in ten victims of intimate violence are female.

    http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/vi.pdf

    (See page 11.)

    I made a mistake, I thought the study that found that 35% of domestic violence victims are male was from 1998, but it was from 2000.

    Below is a link to it, you should read it. It’s very informative and comprehensive, but is about 60 pages long.
    Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence

    It’s interesting that this study found that there are over 7.7 millions incidents of intimate partner violence each year, while the study you linked to cites the NCVS as saying that there are only 960,000 incidents.

    Also, this study notes that male victims of intimate partner violence are less likely than women to report incidents of violence to the police (26.7% of female victims reported their assaults, but only 13.5% of male victims did) . The study also shows that despite the claims of the domestic violence industry, most male victims are not gay and a majority of male victims are assaulted by female partners.

    It’s interesting you note that, because one of the things I was thinking about the “modern conscription” post, is that either the person has read some of the classics of the history of war and international relations (including the work of Barbara Tuchman on World War I), or has been cutting and pasting from the encyclopedia brittanica (or even better, has cut and pasted from an online term paper site/lazy blogger that plagiarized from somewhere else). My favorite was a plagiarist I caught and showed the original source, and the young scholar responded, “but that’s not even where I copied it from!”

    Do you have any proof of your claims that I plagiarized from Encyclopedia Britannica, dumbfuck? The stuff I posted about conscription should be common knowledge to anyone who’s ever taken a world history class.

  143. Andrew, cool it. You’ve already successfully derailed this thread with your ignorant drivel; insult someone again and you’re gone.

  144. It’s interesting that this study found that there are over 7.7 millions incidents of intimate partner violence each year, while the study you linked to cites the NCVS as saying that there are only 960,000 incidents.

    Not so interesting when you consider that the NCVS study actually found that there were 960,000 victims of intimate partner violence, but that because many of those victims were assaulted or raped multiple times, the number of violent incidents was closer to 7.7 million.

    And yes, they do break it down by gender. And surprise! There are both male and female victims of intimate violence, but women far outweigh men. My Acrobat is wonky, so I wasn’t able to get too far into the study to determine the gender breakdown of assailants, though. At least some percentage of male victims will have been assaulted by male partners (and female by female).

  145. Andrew, cool it. You’ve already successfully derailed this thread with your ignorant drivel; insult someone again and you’re gone.

    All I did was respond to binky’s accusation that I plagiarized.

    Not so interesting when you consider that the NCVS study actually found that there were 960,000 victims of intimate partner violence, but that because many of those victims were assaulted or raped multiple times, the number of violent incidents was closer to 7.7 million.

    Go back and read the study that quoted the NCVS. It clearly says “More than 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend occur each year.” It doesn’t say victims, it says incidents.

  146. I am reading the study you linked. And it clearly says that there are 834000 victims of violence, and because of multiple incidents against the same victims, the number of incidents is much greater.

    But I see you didn’t link to any particular page of the study that you’re trying to use as a refutation to the arguments here. Which page, exactly, are you referencing?

  147. Let me amend my previous comment, since I was not able to cut and paste from the study:

    What the study actually says (my transcription; you can check it out here in the Executive Summary:

    According to these estimates [25% of women and 7.6% of men annually are victims of intimate partner violence], approximately 1.5 million women and 834,732 men are raped and/or physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States.

    Because many victims are victimized more than once, the number of intimate partner victimizations exceeds the number of intimate partner victims annually.

    Thus, approximately 4.8 million intimate partner rapes and physical assaults are perptrated against U.S. women annually, and approximately 2.9 million intimate partner physical assaults are committed against U.S. men

    annually.

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